This afternoon, an angry President Obama addressed the execution of American reporter James Foley at the hands of Islamic State militants, declaring "no just god would stand for" the group's actions "yesterday and every day." Foley, he said, "was taken from us in an act of violence that shocks the conscience of the entire world."ISIS (also known as ISIL), Obama said, "has no ideology of value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt.""People like this ultimately fail," he said. "They fail because the future is won by those who build and not destroy, people like Jim Foley."While Obama offered no specific, altered course of action in Iraq, "There has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so it does not spread," he said. "The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be vigilant and we will be relentless."

At a Pentagon briefing, Hagel called ISIS' extremist ideology "barbaric," but warned that the group poses a dire threat that must be taken seriously."[ISIS] is as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen. They're beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded," he said.

The twist is in that Hagel doesn't mention the expected demise of ISIS, warning instead about sophistication, military prowess and tremendous funding of these barbarians.

“ISIL will be destroyed/will be crushed,” Kerry tweeted, using the acronym for an alternative name for ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

Destroyed or crushed, ISIS or ISIL - at least I hope that all three above mentioned VIPs mean the same outfit, cause both ISIL and ISIS acronyms have many meanings, if you care to google a bit. Be a pity if University of Florida's Integrated Student Information System or Indian Society of International Law get a few Hellfires under their tails because of a misunderstanding between all the departments involved.

Anyway, the intent is clear and all the right words were said. Meanwhile there aren't any specific plans behind these words, but this is why these three gentlemen have the might of the Pentagon and its military thinkers and planners behind them. So, I guess, the dark forces of ISIS should be shaking in their stylish black outfits. Or should they?

But the high and mighty say things high and mighty, they don't have to go into boring details. People on the ground, however, like the State Department spokesman Marie Harf in this story, have to do the dirty work, selling bullshit explaining some difficult angles that their bosses just don't have time for.

In another heated exchange between State Department spokesman Marie Harf and AP reporter Matt Lee, the issue of whether any governments are funding ISIS / ISIL is proving to be a hot button issue. In this particular exchange, Qatar is the focus but other countries – specifically Turkey – should start getting spotlighted soon.

Qatar and Turkey again. How interesting. Be it Hamas with their particular thing about the Zionist entity and its eradication, or ISIS with their universally homicidal agenda, the same names pop up. And not just where generous financing is concerned (Qatar), but where logistics support and even training on the ground (Turkey) is being provided.

Along those lines and independent from Vermeulen’s findings, Shoebat.com posted a video of Terrorists (ISIS) crossing from Turkey into Syria with weapons and walking right past Turkish soldiers:

Last month, Shoebat.com reported on the ISIS fighter who proudly proclaimed that their success would not have happened without the support of Turkey.Let’s not forget the leaked audio recordings of high-ranking Turkish officials in which they conspired to have ISIS / ISIS launch an attack on a revered Turkish Islamic tomb of Suleiman Shah and then use that event to launch Turkish forces into Syria. The Turkish government was also implicated in the attacks on Armenian Christians in Syria, as Shoebat.com reported.As for Harf, she has repeatedly asserted that Turkey is a “Close NATO Ally”.

A high and mighty confusion, a "close ally" that is ever ready to stub you in the back and a poor unappreciated spokesperson who is just trying to do her job.

All in all it's probably better to be a POTUS... and the devil may care!

53
comments:

fred lapides
said...

While I do love this site and know it is anti-Obama, nonetheless, note that Obama on vacation keeps on top of what is taking place and does address key issues. And our Hose of Reps? gone all summer and while in DC, do nothing but propose to sue the president.That said, the new Islamic state is encouraged and funded by two Am allies, Turkey and Qatar, and armed by Iran.Now Snoopster, if you were the CEO, what would you do? dump two allies, one a member o fNATO or what? Advise, please.

At least stop giving them billions for arms, which have a way of winding in the hands of Hamas and assorted other terrorists such as ISIL. As for King Scold, also known as the Great Divider, he should please stay on vacation. Likewise the Hose (good one!) of Reps. The less either of them do the better.

"You might be surprised how many top scientists are not exactly atheists, while not exactly religious too."The good ones will admit that it is an unknowable subject, something that humans are not mentally equipped to encompass .

Einstein may not have been "exactly" an atheist, but he was adamant about not believing in any kind of personal G-d.

Surveys of scientists (and mathematicians, who are not exactly scientists) show that the majority of them do not believe in a personal G-d, although a substantial number are agnostics. The more prominent the scientist, the less likely they are to believe in a personal G-d, with the most prominent scientists having extremely low levels of belief. Interestingly, among the prominent scientists at least, the group with the highest level of belief in a personal G-d (although nowhere near a majority) are the mathematicians, with the biologists coming in with the lowest level.

None of this means that scientists are likely to be aggressive about their atheism in the manner of the "new atheists" like Dawkins.I have been a research scientist for over thirty years, at a university at first (of course), and at a prominent national laboratory since the early nineties. Before the "new atheism" began to become prominent maybe fifteen years ago, I do not recall any discussions of religious belief coming up at work. Since then, the topic occasionally comes up, with some colleagues expressing opinions in line with Dawkins, etc., but they are almost always careful to avoid expressing seriously negative opinions about religion except to those who they are pretty certain are not believers.

Interestingly, I sometimes wind up defending religion in general from the charge that it is always a pernicious force in human society, even though I am an atheist myself. As I implied above, such conversations seem always to take place among atheists, so believers are unlikely to be offended.

That's weird, the mathies. But I doubt such surveys are reliable, since any sort of religious admission , while the Dawkins types are playing enforcer, could be a career-killer. Also there's the famous Einstein quote about G-d not "playing dice with the universe" which he said didn't mean what it sounded like but didn't explain very well why not.

OK..for me a Libertarian is simply an anarchist with a blow tie. Which laws would you keep and which give up? I assume you vote and so you do have some imput in what gets done or doesn't...The conservatives, closer to what I think is your position, now bitch about laws and big govt but remain on the taking end of govt goodies from yes, my taxes, for my state sends more tax money in to the feds than it gets back and the conservative state take more out than they put in...I am subsidizing those socialists!Please send me a refund check

Oh, and the "G-d does not play dice," quote from Einstein has nothing to do with G-d, actually. It was just Einstein's way of objecting to the intrinsic stochasticity (randomness) of Bohr's formulation of quantum mechanics. Einstein preferred a picture of the universe much more like the classical "clockwork" universe of Newton.

And his illegal intervention in Libya to save the jihadis and al-Qaeda militias in Benghazi and let all of Khaddaffi's arsenal fall into jihadi hands was part of the equation too.

The first part of making any decision is actually having definable foreign policy goals, something this president lacks. For instance, has it occurred to you that taking out Islamic State only helps Iran consolidate its nuclear armed Shi'ite bloc?

My policy goals would be to arm and strengthen our friends while destroying our enemies. To me, that means a strong and independent Kurdistan that's a US ally, a much improved relationship with Israel including a joint project to take out Iran's nukes and Iran's capacity to cause mischief to anyone for some time, and the destruction of Islamic State and affiliated jihadis, most likely in conjunction with the Saudis, the GCE countries and Egypt.

The rest pretty much takes care of itself, and would leave the entire ME, at least th eUS affiliated part in much better shape.

the House is not keeping on top of things...they are on the usual summer break.

how many mneetings missed ande who are the credible sources and what did his predecessor miss since he was the president with most awol of all modern presidents.the Hose passes bills that neither the senate nor the pres will pass and the house stop bills that the senate and the pres want...tit for tatfavors islamists is simply your bias against him....he has okd requests over and over for arms for Israel

and alas sold arms to Qataryou esxpect him at this moment to announce we are taking out nukes in iran? do you believe Am approves? Congress?

I have served a few times in our military so count me out for that war...we are trying to get Iran NOT to develop bomb. I prefer to give that a chance.

There is a sophisticated command and control center built into the President's golf-club.They now have the problem of his hitting the ball with the wrong end relatively under control. War with Kyrgyzstan was averted . . .

Hello Fred,Again, you assume the president is keeping up on things and the House isn't even though both are on break. Revealing that you mentioned the house ( which is Republican dominated) rather than congress as a whole, which I did in my original comment.

I suggest you do a search on 'president missing intel briefings.' See what you think. Letelky, he simply been reading memos and has announced his preference for those that can be dealt with via a check box, 'agree' 'disagree' or 'no comment'.

If you look at the president's foreign policy, you will see that a preference for Islamists is a common thread in his intervention in Libya, his championship of the Muslim Brotherhood, his arming and training of what was then called ISIS (which I notice you failed to comment on), his attempting to force a ceasefire and save Hamas..and the number of influential Muslim Brotherhood tied advisers in his administration, of whom Robert Malley, Rashad Hussain, Mohammed Elibiary and Arif Alikhan are only a few.

Then there's also the Administration's 'declination to prosecute' decision in what would have been the second Holyland Foundation trail, decision that allowed most of CAIR's leadership to skate on what would have been an almost certain convictions for laundering money for Hamas.

And the huge amount of money Hamas has received via US Aid.

You're also perhaps not aware of Obama's de facto arms shipment cut off to Israel when he first took office, although you probably know he wants Israel to retreat to indefensible borders, redivide Jerusalem and create half a million Jewish refugees for the new Hamas/Fatah entity.

As for Iran, they have been gulling the West on their rogue nuclear weapons program for almost a decade now, and I think even you have to admit that there has been no progress in terms of diplomacy in getting them to stop, while the centrifuges keep spinning. Nor will there be.

If you can't see that Iran is the key to this situation, well and good, we simply disagree. But once Iran goes nuclear, you may want to count yourself out of what happens, but the choice will no longer be yours to make.

Sorry, you are right: by "cheaply" I meant the amount of thought that went into the law. Here, to take one example, the lawmakers rarely bother to check the impact of the new crap they produce seriously. Just to satisfy the moment's craving for a new and, eventually, useless, law seems to be sufficient.

Rob: If you are not going to be polite, please take your toys and go home. It is probably time for your nap.

Amazing how many folks believe that Obama is some sort of secret Muslim sympathizer. Must be the result of only watching Faux News and getting sucked up in their alternate universe, sort of a modern version of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. An example of Karl Rove's infamous Big Lie technique. "If you tell a lie, big enough, often enough, People will believe it".

Examples: lWhat US Aid money going to Hamas, what US backing of the Muslim Brotherhood, etec. Everyone was in favor, when we helped the rebels topple Kaddafi. Only now, that there is chaos in Libya is the Right coming up with the charge that this was somehow a plot by Obama is empower the Islamists. And Rob in your role as the latest reincarnation of Senator Joseph McCarthy, perhaps you can tell me what positions these supposed Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers hold?

Sooner or latter we were going to leave Iraq, Maliki would not sign an agreement barring US Forces from being prosecuted in the Iraqi courts caused Obama to withdraw all the US military, except for an advisory force, from Iraq at the end of 2011.

Yeah, Obama made a good statement concerning James Foley's barbaric murder, but he undercut it by staying on vacation. He should have come back to Washington, like British PM Cameron came back from his vacation to London.

Whoo, Yitzchak, I am sure glad we did not go to war with Kyrgyzstan. It would have taken forever to have gotten to there.

Oh well, at least Obama made his statement from his briefing room, before going out golfing. Unlike Bush Jr. who made a statement condeming a horrible suicide bomb attack in Israel from the golf course and then told the Media folks covering him, Now, watch this drive"!

We haven't left Germany since 1945. Legalisms are always a good excuse for a pol. He could have told Maliki to climb a tree. Instead, he threw all those lost American lives away to suit his lefty base.

David, we both know how the Left usually 'debates.' They say something stupid that 'everyone knows'. They can hit with facts to refute it and totally ignore them, bringing other side issues in, frequently based on their own fevered imaginations. The process repeats itself...cycle, rinse, repeat. Some people can keep this up a surprisingly long time if you let them.

Now, I consider that pretty rude and uncivil as well as intellectually dishonest, so I simply let Fred know I was on to him and informed him that the game's over.

If you want to consider that 'uncivil', tough tortillas. Deal with it.